Samhain
Other than my complaint about not getting to listen to the preachers again this year, I haven't commented much on Samhain. (Not even to cop out like I did last year by linking to the article from the year before.) I fully planned on commenting on it, as for various reasons Samhain was going to be more notable this year than for several years past. In that presumption I turned out to be somewhat correct.
There were two reasons that I expected this to be a notable Samhain. First, being a celebration of honor and remembrance of the recently departed, the loss of one of the most important people in my life this year was certainly going to come into play. As of yet, I have not celebrated a Samhain in which such an important person was central in my personal celebration. I wasn't sure if this was going to make for a good night or not.
The second notable reason was the fact that a Wiccan friend of mine would be coming with her family. It has been several years since I have practiced any Samhain celebration with others who had their own religious/spiritual attachment to the celebration. Our two families had a wonderful time on Lughnassadh, and I imagined that this too would be a quite enjoyable experience.
These were the thoughts if things didn't go wrong. Now I will move on to the realities of my Samhain preparation and celebration. The day before Samhain, while at work, I gave my Wiccan friend my cell phone number again, in case she had misplaced it. I told her that I fully expected plans to be changed many times over the course of the following day, and I would just appreciate it if she updated me when they did, since she had no cell phone (and would be moving from house to house several times during the day) and I would probably be incapable of calling and checking in with her.
The morning of Samhain, I got up much earlier than any mortal should be waking (like 10am or so) and went to work on preparing the house for guests. You see, for those of you who don't know me, how the hell did you end up here? Oh, wait, that wasn't what I was going to say. For those of you who don't know me, I live in a house full of working adults, a 2 yrd old and a destructive little four legged monster that is supposedly a dog. In short, when we entertain, it requires some serious housework to make the place as presentable as possible. We make up for the fact that the place gets cluttered through daily life by making everything shine (including the carpets) when we have guests.
So that early hour had me scrubbing the bathroom from ceiling to floor, just like uncle sam taught me. It had us doing every scrap of laundry in the house. It had every surface sparkling and every one of the kids toys put away. (The latter was an endlessly repeated chore.) We prepared things for the spiritual and casual sides of the celebration, got as much to be "just so" as possible and headed out to the changeling's birthday party.
After her birthday party, I took off while they were taking the kids trick or treating, and my sister and I made final preparations and waited.
That last word is the most important part. Because we did a lot of it. The expected arrival time if nothing changed (remember the phone call I was receiving if it did?) was 6:30p. Messages were left at their home at 8:30p. We finally decided to begin our own miniature celebration at 9:30p. We never heard, and they never showed.
I have worked with this friend of mine and her boyfriend several times since then. I am too professional to say anything to them in the work setting. Neither side has brought it up at all.
So the celebration was noteworthy. Not in the way I celebrated, as it was basically a solitary event as it has been in years past. It was noteworthy because out of all of the various egocentric folks I have known along the path I have walked (and there have been a few) I have never been so directly disrespected as that. I don't ever remember being so angry following Samhain at any other point in my life. There is only one reason I can't say it was ruined by my attempt to reach out to these disrespectful people. Because it was for me, basically a day for Jamesomeone, and as far as he was concerned I couldn't have helped but hear him telling me to let it go. I don't think I can just let it go. As I have said before, forgiveness isn't my thing. But for that night, I could hear him as if he was right there, telling me that this disrespect to him wasn't that important. It's what he would have said. He would have been wrong, but it is what he would have said. For that, perhaps I owe them something. Other than a good swift kick in the ass. But lets take care of first things first.
Thus concludes my Samhain tirade. Feel free to return to your life, or something close to it.
There were two reasons that I expected this to be a notable Samhain. First, being a celebration of honor and remembrance of the recently departed, the loss of one of the most important people in my life this year was certainly going to come into play. As of yet, I have not celebrated a Samhain in which such an important person was central in my personal celebration. I wasn't sure if this was going to make for a good night or not.
The second notable reason was the fact that a Wiccan friend of mine would be coming with her family. It has been several years since I have practiced any Samhain celebration with others who had their own religious/spiritual attachment to the celebration. Our two families had a wonderful time on Lughnassadh, and I imagined that this too would be a quite enjoyable experience.
These were the thoughts if things didn't go wrong. Now I will move on to the realities of my Samhain preparation and celebration. The day before Samhain, while at work, I gave my Wiccan friend my cell phone number again, in case she had misplaced it. I told her that I fully expected plans to be changed many times over the course of the following day, and I would just appreciate it if she updated me when they did, since she had no cell phone (and would be moving from house to house several times during the day) and I would probably be incapable of calling and checking in with her.
The morning of Samhain, I got up much earlier than any mortal should be waking (like 10am or so) and went to work on preparing the house for guests. You see, for those of you who don't know me, how the hell did you end up here? Oh, wait, that wasn't what I was going to say. For those of you who don't know me, I live in a house full of working adults, a 2 yrd old and a destructive little four legged monster that is supposedly a dog. In short, when we entertain, it requires some serious housework to make the place as presentable as possible. We make up for the fact that the place gets cluttered through daily life by making everything shine (including the carpets) when we have guests.
So that early hour had me scrubbing the bathroom from ceiling to floor, just like uncle sam taught me. It had us doing every scrap of laundry in the house. It had every surface sparkling and every one of the kids toys put away. (The latter was an endlessly repeated chore.) We prepared things for the spiritual and casual sides of the celebration, got as much to be "just so" as possible and headed out to the changeling's birthday party.
After her birthday party, I took off while they were taking the kids trick or treating, and my sister and I made final preparations and waited.
That last word is the most important part. Because we did a lot of it. The expected arrival time if nothing changed (remember the phone call I was receiving if it did?) was 6:30p. Messages were left at their home at 8:30p. We finally decided to begin our own miniature celebration at 9:30p. We never heard, and they never showed.
I have worked with this friend of mine and her boyfriend several times since then. I am too professional to say anything to them in the work setting. Neither side has brought it up at all.
So the celebration was noteworthy. Not in the way I celebrated, as it was basically a solitary event as it has been in years past. It was noteworthy because out of all of the various egocentric folks I have known along the path I have walked (and there have been a few) I have never been so directly disrespected as that. I don't ever remember being so angry following Samhain at any other point in my life. There is only one reason I can't say it was ruined by my attempt to reach out to these disrespectful people. Because it was for me, basically a day for Jamesomeone, and as far as he was concerned I couldn't have helped but hear him telling me to let it go. I don't think I can just let it go. As I have said before, forgiveness isn't my thing. But for that night, I could hear him as if he was right there, telling me that this disrespect to him wasn't that important. It's what he would have said. He would have been wrong, but it is what he would have said. For that, perhaps I owe them something. Other than a good swift kick in the ass. But lets take care of first things first.
Thus concludes my Samhain tirade. Feel free to return to your life, or something close to it.
Labels: disrespect, jamesomeone, samhain
posted by Wanderer at 11:12 PM
3 Comments:
that stinks, Steve. I'm sorry.
I could almost feel you making eye contact with me when you said "of all the ego-centric people I've encountered"
MC - :) You actually hadn't crossed my mind at the time.
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